Saturday

The mimosa man - wrapped up against the cold

This Saturday morning, in Cluny market, I saw my first sight of spring. The mimosa man was there. After the winter that wasn’t quite yet, we were plunged into freezing weather this week, so it was a big surprise to see this hope of spring brightening up the rather depleted market.

Beautiful flowers - hope of spring

Instead of giving a feeling of hope that the cold is going to leave us, he looked like a rather incongruous misfit. The fact that he still had so many flowers as the market was about to close, shows that not too many people were as optimistic as his display.

Right now it seems that winter is just starting. I have at last had to drain down the gites, a job I nearly always have to do early in December, but this year, the weather has stayed at such ridiculously high temperatures, it hasn’t been necessary to even consider draining out the water.  It has been so warm that in some gardens the fruit trees are starting to blossom and daffodils are starting to flower.

Snow in the forest

It does seem, however, that Mother Nature has other ideas and on returning home, she was determined to show us that winter is not over at all and put on a magical but brief display. This was the view of the forest from my front window.

Tonight’s low is predicted to be -8. So is winter coming or is the mimosa man right and spring is just around the corner?